ZEPPELIN LOG BOOKS

[Brigantian]

I am researching the attack on Sheffield by Zeppelin L-22 on 25/26 September 1916.

Does anyone if know if mission plans, flight log books or other German contemporary records of these missions survive and if so where they are held?

I will try an enquiry with the Zeppelin Museum at Friedrichshafen but wanted to sound out the Forum first.

Regards

Mark

[egbert]

Try also the museum in Tondern where L 22 was stationed:

http://www.zeppelin-museum.dk

[egbert]

I didn't know they had Maxim MG on top of the hull for self defense; see the pics from L 22;

http://www.zeppelin-museum.dk/D/german/his...n/zeppelin.html

[Michael Lowrey]

Mark,

As I recall, Zeppelins were under German navy control. That may be significant -- if the records remained under German navy control until 1945, they should have survived. In 1945, the British captured the entire German naval archive. The Americans were allowed to microfilm the entire collection. Since then, the original documents have been returned to German control and are at German military archive at Freiburg.

The American copy of the records are held in College Park, Maryland. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration also may sell copies on microfilm. Unfortunately, they have not issued a guide publication, so there's no easy way of knowing which roll number it is you need to order.

Also, in German, a war diary is a "Kriegstagebuch" or KTB. (If you ever need to get ahold of German submarine or destroyer KTBs, the NARA have issued a guide publication, so knowing what to order is easy.)

Best wishes,

Michael

[Guest Pete Wood]

I am posting the three best links that I know, in Germany but, as Michael has told you, your best bet for information is in the USA.

These German links will give you a wider selection of archive photos (especially the last one at Cuxhaven)

http://zeppelin-museum-zeppelinheim.de/welcome.htm

http://www.zeppelin-museum.de/firstpage.en.htm

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...3D%26ie%3DUTF-8

However I feel you may be in for a disappointment. In the vast majority of cases, the Zeppelin crews did not know where they were, over England. Obviously they knew, most of the time, that they were, for example, over the East coast or near the Midlands. But that was about the extent of the accuracy.

For example, Martin Dietrich was unsure if he had bombed Lincoln or Sheffield, though he was 'inclined' to believe it was Sheffield (as his landmark was, correctly, Mablethorpe). One incendiary started a fire in the engine shops of the John Brown ship building factory. The rest of the bombs fell mainly on nearby houses, killing 28 people and injuring 19 others.

I don't know what you are trying to achieve, but if you want a 'flight plan' of the L22, then you are far better off looking at British records - as the path of the airships was plotted from the ground (and air, where possible). The damage caused by the bombs was also recorded - along with police and fire brigade reports on casualties.

As I am sure you know, L22 (now based in Wittmundhaven), on a defensive patrol, was later shot down by Flt Sub Lt Leckie in a flying boat over 'The Bight.' The British had intercepted the L22's radio calls, and were able to plot her likely position which was passed on to Leckie.

[Brigantian]

Egbert

Thanks for the links – some very good photographs of L-22.

Michael

Thanks for the information about the current location of German Naval archives. The L-22 was a Navy Zeppelin so now I know where to start looking.

RT

Thanks for the interesting links – I was aware of the Zeppelin Museum at Friedrichshafen but not the other two.

What I am really after from any surviving records are flight details such as, mission objective (if anymore specific than ‘bomb Sheffield’), exactly what bomb & incendiary load was carried, the altitude bombed from and whether the crew reported being fired upon during the bombing (local accounts on this vary from complete inactivity of the City’s AA defences to the Zeppelin being driven away by fire from a single gun).

Thanks again to you all

Mark

[Guest Pete Wood]

There were Air raid maps made by the British, showing the route of the airships and the times that they passed over towns and large villages. These are in the PRO.

Reports were also made on the damage to the houses. When a civilian was killed, their next of kin would have been entitled to a pension (and some sort of compensation by one of the newspapers). Again this will be at the PRO.

I've been given permission to quote this from, The Baby Killers (Pen and Sword), by Thomas Fegan:

"The industrial city of Sheffield was one of the largest armaments producers in the Empire and was vital to the war effort. When a German Navy Zeppelin raided it on the night of 25/26 September 1916 bombs only narrowly missed the city's factories, striking closely built workers' houses instead. The raid was conducted by Kapitanleutnant Martin Dietrich in L22, who approached Sheffield from the south-east. The Zeppelin circled clockwise over the city before dropping incendiaries and high explosives in a south-easterly and then easterly direction over Pitsmoor and Attercliffe, suburbs north of the city centre.

The first bomb fell in Burngreave Cemetery, the second close to Danville Street where a man was killed. In Grimesthorpe Road, the next bomb split a house in two and killed its two elderly female inhabitants; at the corner of Petre Street and Lyons Road an old man was struck dead by shrapnel as he looked out of his window; an elderly woman died from wounds and shock caused by a bomb in Writtle Street. Nearing the heart of Sheffield's munitions works, two high explosives fell in rapid succession in Cossey Road. The first demolished three houses in a row and penetrated the cellar of the middle one, number 26, where four families were sheltering; three men, four women and three children were killed by the explosion. The second landed at number 10, blowing up a young couple and their baby son as they slept together in bed. In Corby Street, on the other side of the steel and iron works, a bomb accounted for a further nine victims, seven of them at number 136, where five of the family were children. A bomb in Princess Street demolished the Primitive Methodist Chapel, all except for one wall on which a text read above the

ruins: `A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another'. Further bombs fell close to the bridge beside Washford Road and in Woodbourn Road where a man in the street was blown up while warning a household to put out their lights. The Zeppelin finally disappeared east over Darnall, leaving behind twenty-eight dead and nineteen injured. The total could have been much worse. Sheffield's defences were afterwards described as a fiasco, no order having been given for AA to open fire during the raid. To address deficiencies, extra searchlights and guns were mounted on the hills around the city against future attacks.

Bitterness about the raid continued after the war. When a memorial was unveiled outside the Baltic Steel Works on Armistice Day 1922, it was intended to perpetuate the infamy of the Germans as much as remember the dead. The Chairman of the works told the large gathering assembled for the ceremony that if the Germans had had their way neither the works nor they would still exist. Although no longer a steelworks, the building and memorial still stand on Effingham Road, off Attercliffe Road. Fifty yards left of the Baltic Works entrance, the large grey stone set back in the brick wall reads:

`Lest we Forget' on September 26th 1916 nine men, ten women and ten children were killed by a German air raid on Sheffield. One of the bombs fell close to this spot.

The bomb referred to is probably the one that landed near Washford Road."

I have looked through The Air Defence of Britain 1914-1918 and can't find any reference to suggest that any RFC aeroplanes saw/chased L22.

If you need more pics of L22, or Deitrich, I have some.

[Brigantian]

RT

Thanks for the PRO pointers – I hope to pay a visit in the next couple of weeks and have now identified an extra dozen more files to look at!

Thanks also for the quote from The Baby Killers – I’ve not seen it before and it adds a few more pieces to the picture.

I have a copy of Douglas Robinson’s excellent The Zeppelin in Combat which has some photographs of both Martin Dietrich and L-22. Egbert’s second link also has some interesting images of L-22 - if you have any other photographs I would be very interested in seeing them.

Thanks again

Mark